Pernalonga e o Abutre Mimoso

Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942)

**** (out of 4)

A mama buzzard sends her four children out to get food but the dimwitted one, named Beaky Buzzard, is unlucky as he has to bring home a rabbit and he just happens to run into Bugs Bunny. This here has always been one of my favorite animated shorts because Bugs and Beaky just make the ultimate duo because both are just so damn cute here. The animation is perfectly done and the story contains enough great moments for two films. The best sequence is when Bugs goes to "take a shower" before going with Beaky who finally starts to realize a joke is being played on him. What happens next is just priceless. The final joke with Bugs also gets a big laugh just for the wonderful voice. To me what works best is actually Beaky because he's just so adorable and stupid at the same time. The voice work is downright brilliant and in itself brings a lot of laughs.

This is a Bob Clameptt Bugs Bunny cartoon that gives us the Bugs look as we now know him as done by animator Robert McKimson. Pretty cute, huh? Anyway, a buzzard with a voice that sounds like Mortimer Snerd is trying to capture him for his mama. As always, Bugs outsmarts him at every turn but there is one gag in which Bugs thinks he's dying (though even here he cracks, "Grusome, isn't it?"). There's also a wonderfully choreographed big-band dance that is one of the most entertaining animation I've ever seen in these Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons. Plenty of hilarious Clampett touches abound like the trombone sound Bugs makes when he fingers the buzzard's Adam's apple or the "bee-op" sound you hear in many of these cartoons. That was made by Bob himself. Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid is highly recommended.

"Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid" may be partly famous for giving that wascawwy wabbit the form that we know and love today, but even if you don't know that, it's still great to watch. Featuring loopy Beaky Buzzard trying to capture Bugs Bunny as food, they come up with everything here. Probably the coolest part is when Beaky drops Bugs onto a skeleton and Bugs thinks that he personally has gone the way of the dodo! Overall, it's a really neat cartoon. A true classic.

I just try to imagine if Beaky Buzzard had appeared in "The Birds". Then again, that doofus didn't stand a chance at scaring the people in Bodega Bay. But he was good for getting knocked silly by Bugs Bunny.

WE HAVE JUST watched this one on video; as a bonus feature on the special 2 disc DVD release of YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. Although the cartoon has been around and available on television for well over the half century point, it seemed to be new.

THE SHORT BECAME familiar to us as one of those "Associated Artists Productions" TV releases. In our case, we saw it (often) on the old BUGS BUNNY & FRIENDS local kids TV show on WGN TV, Channel 9, in Chicago. As was the custom, there was a host; in this case, it was one Dick Coughlin. He always sported a sort of "Lumberjack Wardrobe"; featuring dungarees and flannel shirts (always).

THE SET WAS done up to look like a farm or woodland locale. A puppet version of Bugs would interact with the host in comic sketches; between the screening of the 2 or 3 cartoons that were shown each evening, from 6:30 to 7:00 PM. (there were some other character puppets, such as "Radcliffe Racoon" and others, whose names we can't recall). Mr. Coughlin provided the voices, although no ventriloquist himself.

AT THE TIME of seeing BUGS BUNNY GETS THE BOID, we found it to be funny and would have rated it at or near to the top of the pack. The gags were energetic and genuinely tickled the funny bone. The animation was smooth and the short storyline had not a wasted frame of film.

AS WITH ALL Warner Brothers Looney Tunes & Merry Melodies, a hallmark identifier is its music. This was no exception; as its soundtrack has the lively and totally customized Carl Stalling original score. Although the sound era animated shorts are visual, with the advantage of having snappy dialog & comical voices as an adjunct, just try viewing & listening to the same cartoon; but without the music.

ONE ASPECT OF the humor, that was not readily apparent to us as kids in the 1950's was that Warner's cartoons often time parodied some of the then popular entertainers or Radio characters. In this case, the young vulture, "Killer" is a spoof of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's Mortimer Snerd. The buzzard, his brothers and Italian accented mother would be reprised for other, recurring appearances.

ON THE PARTICULAR DVD that we viewed, the cartoon must have been remastered. The color is brilliant and the images are crystal clear. (Clever, these Americans!)

This was Clampett's third Bugs Bunny cartoon, but it marks the first time Bugs Bunny looks like the rabbit we all know. Prior to this Bugs had a more oval head giving him a rat-like appearance. It was as an animator in Clampett's unit that Robert Mckimson developed the model sheet of Bugs that all the other units eventually used. In the cartoons of the other directors at this time Bugs looked pretty ugly while he kept getting better looking in the Clampett cartoons. This is also the first appearence of Beaky Buzzard, a Mortimer Snerd caricature. This cartoon is funnier than Clampett's first two Bugs films and the animation is pretty solid, especially Mckimson's. However, Clampett would go far beyond this one with such cartoons as What's Cookin', Doc?, The Old Grey Hare, The Big Snooze, and Tortoise Wins By A Hare. Overall, a good cartoon, though.